Health care is misunderstood by most people in this country.
I agree with you 100%. IMO most people are clueless about why their health care costs are rising, and what is driving the cost higher.
New technologies are costing more and insurance claims are paying the "higher cost" of treatment
Various treatments weren't available 10 years ago, and IMO the changes in medicine (especially stem cell research) are really promising for patients fighting life threatening diseases.
Too many patients IMO seem to use the Emergency Room as their primary care doctor. The E.R. IMO seems to be used too often for basic medical care that could be handled during a normal office visit that would be less expensive for the insurance companies, and also for the patient.
IMO one of the main reasons that health care costs are rising has to do with the cost of malpractice insurance....not only for physicians, but hospitals, and employees in health care. Too much of medicine at times can be "defensive medicine". Tests are sometimes ordered that probably aren't really needed, but would be needed to prove that all options have been ruled out before a specific treatment is initiated. Sometimes the reason for specific tests being ordered are only in case of a possible lawsuit being filed in the future. Malpractice lawsuits tend to name anyone who has ever seen a patient...even if the patient was transferred to an intensive care unit, where the staff did every treatment correctly, but there was a bad outcome. Patients seem to expect perfection in their results, when sometimes doing "everything right" (according to "standard of care") doesn't always lead to perfect results.
IMO there are too many meritless malpractice lawsuits filed, and lawyers who file these lawsuits are not held accountable for filing these suits. Often the malpractice insurer pressures the physician or hospital to settle a meritless case out of court...even if the case could be won, because it is less expensive to settle than to fight an extended legal battle. IMO the award paid to the personal injury lawyers should be limited. If we had a system that had the outcome of a trial be that the side that lost the case had to pay all of the costs of the other side, IMO there would be much fewer cased filed. An attorney would throughly research a case before filing, knowing that the outcome might mean either paying the court costs of the defendant, or possibly winning a case. I don't think quite as many attorneys would rush to file a lawsuit if they thought they might be financially accountable for their actions. |
